Week Wraps with Health Research and Spacewalk Closeout Procedures - NASA (.gov)

When Adina Isenberg was diagnosed with breast cancer nine years ago, it came as a shock. “You think, like, how is this real? This must be some sort of joke.”But when she woke up from her lumpectomy procedure, she was faced with a whole new host of feelings with how the surgery changed her body. “When I woke up from my surgery, I couldn’t believe that in addition to the scar that I had prepared for on my breast, I had a second scar in my armpit, which is for when they take out what they call the sentinel node,” she said. Researchers at the University Health Network in Toronto are now leveraging AI to help create a 3D picture of what tumours look like. Using this technology could better prepare patients for the procedures they are about to undergo. Story continues below advertisement

UVA Health is expanding its advanced cardiovascular care capabilities as the first healthcare system in Virginia to offer a dedicated robotic cardiac surgery program. Led by Michael Ibrahim, MD, director of robotic cardiac surgery at UVA Health, the program brings cutting-edge, minimally invasive options for valve patients right now across Virginia and beyond. While robotic heart surgery was once limited to simple procedures, the program at UVA Health covers a broad spectrum of complex valve conditions as well as atrial fibrillation and coronary artery disease. The team's inaugural procedure demonstrated the clinical value of bringing this advanced technology to UVA Health. Rather than facing a traditional open-chest operation, the patient successfully underwent a robotic mitral valve repair. "This first patient was somewhere kind of in the middle. She had complex valve disease and was considering a transcatheter therapy versus surgery, “ says Ibrahim. “Because we were able to use surgery without having to open the chest, that's what she went with. And surgery is generally more durable and more definitively corrective than transcatheter therapy," he notes.

A common liver disease affecting nearly 30% of adults worldwide is far more complex than previously understood. Researchers at Mayo Clinic have identified five biologically distinct forms of the condition, each associated with different risks of serious health complications, including heart disease, liver failure, cancer, and the need for a liver transplant. The findings, published in Nature Communications, come from a collaboration between Mayo Clinic and Virginia Tech. Scientists discovered that metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, or MASLD, can develop through several different biological pathways. Some are closely connected to obesity and diabetes, while others appear to be driven by inherited genetic differences.